Tag Archives: Movies

Just came out of Next. The nick cage movie. In a word, terrible. It was just a long drawn-out version of the scene from minority report where tom cruise is deftly navigated via precognition away from his former teammates.

The fact that I spent more time on the tom cruise movie should not have escaped you. Avoid ‘Next’ it’s ‘next’ to pointless.

EDIT: I thought that I’d expand my original review.

The cast is okay in the flick, but Nick Cage is way too old to be macking on Jessica Biel. The movie moves on, with each example of Nick’s powers becoming more an more expansive. I have to admit that the writer took a fairly smart turn with future viewing and so on, but the ending was SO Cheesy.

I yelled “cheese” when the big ending came, and the audience laughed in agreement. All 5 of them.
Avoid Next. It’s a waste of money and time.

It was pretty damn good. It had the same snappy edits and pacing of Shaun, with the same kind of humor and fun. Pegg and Frost are a good on-screen duo, playing off each other well. I won’t poil any of it for you save this, hold on to you hats for the best on-screen flying kick you have ever seen.

All in all, I recommend this movie for action buffs, British comedy fans and Bill Nighy maniacs.

Planet Terror; Freddy Rodriguez and Rose McGowan fight against an ever growing crowd of shambling herpetic sores. Freddy is El Wray. If you know anything about Rodriguez movies, you are now impressed beyond words. If you don’t know why a character NAMED “El Ray” is impressive, as yourself: “where was Seth going at the end of From Dusk Till Dawn”?

Death Proof; Kurt Russel collects the bodies of girl quartets for no apparent reason. He screams like a stuck pig when he’s hurt and cries at the end. It still managed to have me on the edge of my seat thanking Quentin Tarantino for making it.

I cannot for the life of me come up with a villain I like more than the others.

Umm, I like Zombies the best, and I really can’t just say “Zombies” can I?

When I was more angsty and emo, I would have said “Lestat” as he was a cool Vampire Dude, but I know, he was just a preening metro-sexual twerp.

I’m staring at my DVD collection, looking for inspiration…recently I’ve been toying with “Mr. Svenning” from Mallrats and Chasin AMy, like “You should have seen what Mr. Svenning did when he found me doing X” but he’s not really a movie villain. Just an Antagonist.

The Kurgan, Interesting, the Bad Guy from “The Highlander”, played by Clancy Brown (who would have been a better sabertooth than any fricking wrestler). Good Choice.

Simon Phoenix, from Demolition Man. Now I’m circling it. Played by Welsley Snipes, cool as hell.

Shoot, yeah, Denis Leary in Judgment Night. Good Villain. Played his schtick up well, had the guys from House of Pain in his Posse. Irish Gangsters. Good Flick.

Mr. Hand! Richard O’Brian plays freaky weirdos better than almost anyone. He takes on the mind of a serial killer to track down Rufus Sewell. Check out the Pawns of Null-A for a version of this story that makes the movie even better. It’s a thin comparison… but yeah.
Speaking of Rufus Sewell; Count Adhemar of Anjou, from Knight’s Tale. Weighed, Measured and fun to watch him fall. He didn’t even have to die for it. Good Stuff.

I’ve always associated the “Bijou” theater name with the “Gay Theater” in any town. The type of theatre you’d see primary boy-on-boy action in a movie.

Safe to say, that’s not my type of flick, it’s right for some given that there appears to be a large amount of it being produced (if LiveJournal is any indicator)

The Bijou in Eugene is housed in what I understand is a former church with the screen in an actual chapel. It’s essentially a very large television, stereo sound only. This does not detract from the movies in any way, please do not feel that it might. In Eugene, the Bijou is the “Art Theater” where movies like “An Inconvenient Truth” and “American Hardcore” may show. They appear to show “Battle Royale” alot and I’d really like to see it on a big screen, maybe sometime in the future.

007Ben and I went to see “A Scanner Darkly (2006)” today, I really loved it. I know a number of people will (and have) accuse me of loving almost every film I see; I have broad and forgiving tastes [I love Jackass and Kevin Smith Movies so sue me] but this film was great. It wasn’t too mind bending though, I had expected more discussion of identity and self, and I sussed the real “plot” way too early, but I really enjoyed the performances. Woody Harrelson was great, Keanu turned in his best GoodDamon impression to date and Robert Downey Jr. did a GREAT job as the Engineer/Chemist/Tweaker that foiled Keanu Reeves‘ character. Winona Rider turned out a great prformance as the Girlfriend, but I think she was under-utilized.
The real standout character on screen [in my mind] was “Freck” played by Rory Cochrane. Freck is our typical down-on-his-luck hapless druggie. There are bugs all over him and his imagiantion is graphic and twisted. Even his suicide is a bust. He is the “loser” amongst the troupe of drugged out losers. The Rotoscoping on the movie is used to best effect on him, as his face is one of constant disgust, until it turns to beafatic bemusement as his litany of sins is read to him by a multidinous-eyed mosnter from another dimension. All-in-all it was a fine movie and I expect to snag the DVD ASAP.

I’ve written a small shooting script or two in the past. I’ve always wanted to shoot a real low-budget flick. The whole shebang, actors, lights locations sets, music and all the rest of it. I’ve toyed with it so much I’ve went as far as trying to rope in performers and technical folks. This is how far it usually goes though…

Me:So you wanna make this flick then?Co-Conspiritor: I was interested, but now I’m going to look at this shiny thing over here.

See what I mean?

Anyway, since I started actually paying attention to how movies are made, and less to just the stories, I actually started noticing how they are composed and portrayed. Commentary tracks on DVDs help out LOTS. Two movies stand out as really making art of their shots (in my opinion) and they might surprise some

Number One is PI: Here is a movie that blends the music to the mood to the action. The Camera is both OUR eye and the Eye inside the mind of the character. It was so compelling.

Number Two is 187: This is a “good teacher gets revenge on bad kids” story. Watch the camera work and sound on this, it is momentous.

Presented for your entertainment and in no way meant to infringe upon the copyrighted materials we blatently rip off already: The Top Ten Most Shocking Revelations in Star Wars Episode Two: Attack of the clones!

10. Luke and Leia were not fathered by Darth Vader as previously revealed, but instead Padme was impregnated by a confused Obi-Wan just back from another “visit” to the bars on Corsuicant.

9. Mace Windu is more than just a bad ass Jedi, he also moonlights as a singer in Jabbas Pleasure Dome.

8. Bobba Fett is a clone.

7. Bobba Fett is not nearly as annoying as Annikan was as a child.

6. Smoking exists in the seedy unerworld of the Republic, however the PFY that pushes them does not have the force powers to push them.

5. Darth Sidious likes to arrange flowers and ballet dance in his spare time between enslaving politicians and kidnapping planets.

I’m in the midst of moving the site over to SSL/HTTPS for administration purposes at least. Which means changing my backend security and so on; which proved to be a bear where graphics where relative rather than direct links. Ah well. It’s working now. The Upgrade is working too! I have a valid SSL cert (I think) and it appears to be working.